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New readers guide
Hello and welcome to the Sluggy universe. As you might have realized, the world of Sluggy is a huge place, with daily strips dating back to 1997 (about 5000 strips), so reading through the entire archives is a major task. Fortunately, you don't have to do that, since all the information you will need to follow the daily strip updates is right here. Current situation The main characters (good-guy Torg, genius inventor Riff, likeable Zoë, violent bunny Bun-bun and ever-enthusiastic ferret Kiki) are in hiding in a forest hut. They are hiding from a mysterious female assassin called Oasis and Hereti-Corp, a mega-corporation that is trying to capture Oasis for mysterious purposes. Oasis has repeatedly tried to murder Zoë, and is in love with Torg. She keeps coming back from the dead and can start fires with her thoughts if angered enough. They also have a different kind of problem: Riff have visited a parallel dimension where the world was destroyed due to a war between two corporate factions: Hereti-Corp (the winners) on one side, and Crushestro (weapons manufacturer) and the Nofun mutants (mutants created by a bio-engineering company) on the other. The problem is that in their own dimension the same factions are about to go to war, which will probably cause the same mess again. Torg is responsible for setting up Crushestro and NoFun mutants against Hereti-Corp to get revenge for various crimes that Hereti-Corp has committed. When Torg heard about Riff's experiences he naturally felt very guilty and hopeless from having possibly doomed his own dimension. Right now, the main characters have more immediate concerns. An enraged hacker has sent a subliminal message through the game HamsterNom, which hypnotizes animals to attack and devour humans, see Nombies. Background information There are two characters who are part of the usual gang but do not appear in the current storyline: Gwynn, an aggressive witch, friend of Zoë and ex-girlfriend of Riff. Aylee, a likeable shapeshifting green alien who currently looks like a woman. The current leader of Hereti-Corp is Dr. Irving Schlock, a cowardly scientist from the future whom the main characters know well. He has an unknown "triangle plan" involving Oasis, Torg, and Riff's inventions. It was Schlock's betrayal of Riff that stranded him in the dimension of rain, and almost killed Zoë in the process. Torg is formally a minion of a super-villain called the Minion Master, but in reality Torg called the shots in what missions the minions of the Minion Master undertook. His allies are tech-girl Sasha and the dorky vampire Sam, as well as Zombie Head on a Stick. The other minions are all currently on infiltration missions. Oasis is a mystery. We do not know how she keeps reviving, and we do not know why Hereti-Corp needs her. She, or at least her mind, was "made" by Steven Hereti, who gave her subliminal mental conditioning to kill all Hereti-Corp employees and ordered her to love Torg. She uses knives to deadly effect, and can start fires with her mind. Oasis was last seen when Nash betrayed Hereti-Corp and cut off the head of a paralyzed Oasis in their possession. He intends to cash in a bounty on her head, set by a criminal organization. Also, Zoë may have once again realized that she is in love with Torg, but the details aren't clear. The memory of her first realization was erased during her visit with Riff to the Dimension of Rain. Torg has expressed feelings for Zoë, but promised to marry Oasis in order to protect Zoë from her murderous jealousy. Reading the archives If you want to take the plunge into the archives, you might want to check out the storylines presentation. Here are links to jump into the most dramatic storylines of the comic, for example by following all appearances of Oasis. Another option is to go to the archives page. This is a page that intends to give an overview of the Sluggy archive, keeping the structure from the comic homepage with books, chapters and stories. Every story have a short flavor text, that might get you interrested enough to dive into the archives at that point. The last part of this page is a nifty sluggy events timeline. Instead of presenting flavor text, this maps all the important events that happen in each chapter. If you want to skip some chapters when you are reading the archives, you can extract all the facts from those chapters here. A Nifty Sluggy Events Timeline Alright, so you've probably realized that Sluggy's history is huge, and going back and re-reading the archives is a daunting aspect even to dedicated Sluggites. So for new Sluggites who aren't up for an archive dive just yet here is a timeline of events that have taken place in the various stories. Note that this is a) a poor excuse for the real thing and the comic itself is infinitely better than this timeline, which only contains bare-bones need to know stuff and b) extremely long, but far shorter than an archive trawl. Also unmarked spoilers from semi-recent stories lie below. Consider yourself warned. Chapter 1 - 10 '- Chapter One:' Is It Not Nifty?. + Riff, Torg, Bun-bun, Teddy Weddy and Zoë are introduced. + Riff and Torg successfully summon a demon with the Book of E-Ville, but later throw it away. '- Chapter Two:' The Sci-fi Adventure. + Riff and Torg attempt to use the Dimensional Flux Agitator (which Riff just invented) to get rid of Bun-Bun, but end up fluxing themselves to a random dimension. + Riff and Torg meet Aylee in the dimension and accidentally bring her back with them when they return. '- Chapter Three:' Holiday Seasons. + Sam Sein, Gwynn, Dr. Irving Schlock, Dr. Lorna and Kiki are all introduced. + Sam throws a Halloween party, which Aylee crashes. + Schlock loses his eye to Bun-bun. + Bun-Bun's ongoing feud with Santa is introduced, with both trying to kill each other. + We learn that Dr. Lorna is Riff's mother and her overbearing nature is part of the reason why he is such a mad scientist. '- Chapter Four:' The Slug-Files + Sam sets Torg up on a blind date with someone on the internet so he can go out with Zoë, and he promptly vanishes. + Riff has his first (of many) disastrous dates with Gwynn. + Aylee tracks down Torg and gets a job as his secretary, later fighting with Bun-Bun and attracting (and losing) the attention of the government. + Riff begins his long-standing animosity with Aylee, feeling that she doesn't belong to their dimension and that as the one who brought her there, he is responsible for keeping her in line. '- Chapter Five:' Valerie + Torg and Riff go looking for Sam, to find that he has married a woman named Valerie + Sam kicks Kiki (his pet ferret) out, and she moves in with Riff. + Torg and Valerie begin hanging out and discover that they have a mutual attraction to one another. + Bun-Bun steals one of Riff's robots and goes on a rampage, accidentally killing the Easter Bunny and assuming his role as the new Easter Bunny. '- Chapter Six:' Torg Goes to Hell + While fixing his robot Riff accidentally activates the DFA and sends Torg to the Dimension of Pain. + Horribus, Psyk, Mosp, and Reakk are introduced. + Torg escapes the demons and gets to the Sacred Circle of Protection, from which he is rescued by Alt-Riff and Alt-Zoë of the Dimension of Lame. + Riff and Zoë accidentally save an alternate Portuguese-speaking Torg from the Dimension of Sham-Pain. + Torg leaves the DoL and returns to his home dimension, where he sends his alternate self back home as well. + A dimensional pinhole to the Dimension of Lame is left in the Dimension of Pain protected by the Sacred Circle of Protection. '- Chapter Seven:' Summer Vacation + Aylee reveals that she changes form repeatedly to adapt to her environment, causing Riff to grow even more suspicious of her. She later cocoons herself for a major change. + The group goes to Nag's Head South Carolina for a vacation. + Gratuitous bikini-shot Sunday! + Jaya is introduced. + Bun-Bun is lost at sea during a storm, the gang goes back without him. + Aylee emerges into her new form: a long snake-like form that sprouts sharp spines and claws when she tenses her muscles. Riff isn't amused by this. + Bun-Bun comes back after a lengthy time at sea. '- Chapter Eight:' Vampires (First real spoilers start here.) + Sam and Valerie are revealed to be vampires serving an ancient vampire queen: Lysinda. They aren't married, and only posed as a married couple to get close to their targets for future conversion: Torg and Zoë. + Torg and Zoë are abducted, but Sam betrays the other vampires, sparing Riff's life, killing another vampire, and giving Riff the means to find the rest of them. + Valerie reveals that she loves Torg because he reminds her of her long-dead husband, and after his death she went with Lysinda to become a vampire. + Riff, Bun-Bun, Aylee, and Kiki track down and kill all of the vampires. Torg kills Valerie and Zoë finishes off Lysinda. Sam survives after Kiki accidentally frees him. '- Chapter Nine:' Return of the Holiday Seasons + The demons of the Dimension of Pain try to send a demon to Torg's dimension on Halloween to kill him and steal his soul, but fail miserably. + After problems with Gwynn and Zoë, Riff heads to an ancient tomb in Tunisia to return a relic from his past to where his dad retrieved it from. Torg tags along and they are trapped in the pyramid with a mummy and rapidly dwindling population of snakes. + Santa tries to outmaneuver Bun-Bun by sending the Ghosts of Christmas at him, but they fail rather spectacularly and Bun-Bun blows up Santa's workshop but misses killing him. Riff and Torg have a Sluggy Mummy Christmas in the tomb. + Riff and Torg are rescued by Laura Croft-Macaroni-and-Cheese. + Gwynn begins messing around with voodoo and other dark arts. + Berk is introduced. + Torg turns into 'Torgo of the Jungle' in response to all of the stress in his life. Chapter Ten: K'Z'K + Gwynn is shown to be using the power of the book of E-Ville to gain supernatural talents. + Berk apparently goes crazy, tries to kill Torg and uses some kind of device on Aylee to freeze her in time before running off. + It is revealed that Gwynn began to summon a demon to get even with Riff for his earlier actions and needs to complete the spell. She does and the demon, known as K'Z'K possesses her. + After he is killed, the gang discovers that Berk was a soldier from the future where K'Z'K won and was sent back to try and stop the demon from taking over. He went after Torg because of faulty intel stating that he was the one who released the demon onto the world in the first place. + The gang splits up and re-unites in New York to confront the demon, where Torg accidentally frees it by exorcising it from Gwynn (who enters a coma afterwards). Riff uses Berk's re-charged time weapon on K'Z'K but instead of pausing him it sends him into the past. + Bun-Bun sells the time-frozen Aylee to an eccentric radio host. Chapter 11 - 20 '- Chapter Eleven:' Mecha Easter Bunny + Santa and the dead Easter Bunny's family create a cyborg Easter Bunny to take over the job and kill Bun-Bun, however the mini-lop manages to destroy it, Bun-Bun is blown up and apparently killed while attempting to kill Santa in retaliation. '- Chapter Twelve:' The Time Machine + Dex, Zoë's crush at college, is introduced. + Riff and Torg are tinkering with Berk's time weapon and decide to send Torg ahead to the year 2000 to see if the Y2K bug messes up anything important, Zoë, tired of being 'boring' comes along with a shotgun. + Torg and Zoë are accidentally sent to the past and not the future, where they find K'Z'K is in power. + Sam teams up with Muffin the Vampire Baker to take on some vampires, but ends up making things worse. '- Chapter Thirteen:' Loose Ends + Bun-Bun is shown to have survived but has amnesia, which he quickly gets over. He soon returns to the gang. + One of Santa's elves, Squeekybobo, is shown to have died in the explosion and entered the Dimension of Pain. + Santa launches himself into space to evade Bun-Bun. + Aylee wakes up and Riff comes to get her after hearing that a time traveler is expected to appear on the show of the man who bought her. + Riff meets the old version of Dr. Schlock, who is from the same future as Berk and went back in time to escape the demon (and make tons of money). + They agree to work together to try and find Torg and Zoë, but the results leave a lot to be desired. '- Chapter Fourteen:' The Storm Breaker Saga + Torg and Zoë are separated in the past, being taken by separate, feuding nations. Zoë assumes the role of the Stormbreaker, the one destined to defeat K'Z'K. Torg is mistaken for the leader of the soldiers who captured him, and is brought back to his 'home'. + Torg meets Valerie before she was a vampire and Lysinda. + The two nations go to war, with Torg leading his nation masquerading as its leader (who is very ill). He uses a very special sword during the war. He and Zoë meet up during the battle and leave with a cleric from the nation Zoë stayed with. + The trio collects a bard who helps them find the Cave of Yffi, wherein lies the book of Güd, one of the few things that can kill K'Z'K. However the demon catches them quickly. + Zoë kills K'Z'K and releases all of the souls he had imprisoned, including Gwynn's, which returns to her body and revives her. + Riff finds Torg and Zoë and brings them back forward in time, Torg has to choose to leave Valerie to her inevitable fate. + Gwynn is shown to retain some magical powers from her possession. '- Chapter Fifteen:' The Isle of Dr. Steve + Bun-Bun, Torg, and Kiki head into the woods, but quickly begin fighting amongst themselves. + Oasis and Doctor Steve Hereti are introduced. + Dr. Steve has Oasis under some sort of mind control, using a watch to relay commands to her. He has a compound set up in the middle of the woods where he is apparently performing some sort of ongoing work (lasting thirty odd years) related to Oasis. He also claims to have built Oasis' mind. + Dr. Steve orders Oasis to fall in love with Torg, which she does. Unfortunately due to Bun-Bun and Kiki's antics at his computer this is the last command he ever gives her. The system also deletes all data and self-destructs the base, with Oasis and Dr. Steve getting caught in the blast. + Torg goes on a single, disastrous date with Gwynn, but the police interrupt when the Corvette Torg stole from Dr. Steve was called in as stolen. + The gang throws their annual Halloween party, Percy, the man-eating wooly mammoth, is introduced. + Val's ghost apparently returns to plead for her redemption at Torg's hands, but it is only Squeekybobo sent on behalf of the Dimension of Pain. He reveals the the DoP will keep sending demons after him on Halloween until they finally kill him because they have nothing better to do. He attempts to possess Zoë, but Gwynn uses the power of the Book of E-Ville to force him out. This also renders her completely possession-proof. + Zoë and Gwynn get in a disagreement over her residual powers, marking the beginning of a rift in their relationship. + Aylee attends Cannibals Anonymous to deal with her habit of eating people along with Percy. After many setbacks the two become friends and her habit of eating people is broken. '- Chapter Sixteen:' 2000 + Bun-Bun sets his annual trap for Santa, but instead finds Mrs. Claus, who reveals that Santa has vanished and it was up to her to perform his duties. She manages to talk her way out of Bun-Bun killing her. + The gang watches the New Year pass, and immediately fall into a coma along with Jaya, Bun-Bun, and Aylee. Sam is temporarily afflicted with a headache and sets out to find the others. Future Dr. Schlock starts bleeding from his nose and ears and claims that a million people are about to die. '- Chapter Seventeen' Kiki's Virus + Dr. Schlock, Kiki, and Sam all meet up, and Schlock (using his future knowledge) reveals that this Virus struck down people with comas in phase one, then two days later they awoke as carriers. Two days after that they and everyone they had met since awakening met died of this disease. Kiki is apparently 'patient zero' of the disease. + Bun-Bun exposes young Schlock to Kiki, forcing Dr. Schlock to find a cure for the disease. Kiki is revealed to have participated in research with Dr. Crabtree that killed all of her old friends. + Dr. Catherine Crabtree is introduced as a researcher in the field of nano-robots, which is the source of the disease. The only solution for the dilemma lies in Kiki's mind and her memories of her time as a research animal. + After picking her brain they realize that the 'Y2K Bug' accidentally caused the dormant nanites from her tests to re-boot into old programming (which unintentionally kills those they invade). Kiki runs off after learning that she is the source of the Virus. Dr. Schlock fixes the problems, everyone wakes up, and Kiki returns home to her family. Sam and Riff reconcile enough so that Riff won't kill him on sight. + Dr. Crabtree kills young Schlock and decides to clean house on everyone who had contact with her nanites, starting with old Schlock. + The DoP seals Squeekybobo in a ball, and drop off the radar for a while. '- Chapter Eighteen' Love Potion + Gwynn begins an online chat with someone named Kenny, a fellow former demon-possessee that was left with residual powers. + All of Gwynn's friends make fun of her within earshot of her, driving her further away. Kenny suggests that she make a love potion, and use it for her friends' and her own benefit, making them accept her for who she is. + Gwynn creates the potion (which is supposed to get weaker as time goes on and wear off by the full moon) and gives a batch to Zoë's crush Dex, who immediately falls for Zoë and sets up a date. However the potion begins to adversely affect Dex, driving him from thoughts of love to thoughts of murder. + Things go further downhill when Bun-Bun accidentally takes the potion and falls for Gwynn, Riff falls for Crystal the bartender, and Crystal falls in love with Torg. What happens next can only be described as pure, untainted hilarity as the love-sick tangle runs all over the countryside causing havoc. + Torg and Zoë escape the others for a while and accidentally sip some punch spiked with the potion. Fortunately Gwynn manages to keep them from looking at anyone, which spares them the effects. However their 'admirers' soon catch up and the two have to flee with their eyes closed. The pair eventually decide to open their eyes while looking away from each other to make sure they aren't on the highway or something. They end up staring directly at one another under the light of the full moon right as the potion wears off (the others don't remember anything). They agree to go on a date the next day. + Oasis kidnaps Zoë on their date, and Torg have to pretend he doesn't care about her to save her from Oasis' wrath. Zoë doesn't understand this, and end up in tears. + Gwynn curse Torg slowly into a donkey, so he can't tell Riff she is using magic again. + Oasis attempts to forcibly marry Torg, but ends up in a battle with Gwynn, who kill her. + Torg and Zoë realise that K'z'k is still active and have got a great deal of influence over Gwynn. '- Chapter Nineteen' K I T T E N Keep on Truckin', not done yet...